Hey guys and gals. Once again I'm at army builder working on a theme for my Cadian army I'm trying to get done. Let me preface this list before I post it. I wanted to go with a list that was fairly fluffy, yet not a weak list. Essentially something that would "actually" be fielded by Cadia. The regiment is the 131st Cadian Infantry. I plan to theme them around Kasr fighting that was going on during the 13th crusade and the aftermath that followed.

So keeping this in mind I immediately tried to figure out what would go with my army. I figured that plasma weaponry although rare would be fairly accessible to a front line Cadian regiment fighting in their home sector, also sticking to the original fluff for Cadia, no ab humans allowed.

With this rough idea I set out sculpting the list and trying to figure out what units I wanted and how I wanted the army to preform on the battle field. My initial army consisted of mostly mechanized veterans, but I felt there was too much spam and revisited the list before I posted it on my blog and got crunching.

I figured an army that was engaged in bitter city fighting with chaos would need some form of rapid response once pockets of resistance, or worst, chaos space marines were encountered. The ground pounders would pin down the foe, or engage them sot hey could not slip away. Then call in artillery and airborne reinforcements to deal with the traitors. I figured a few units of air cav veterans would fill this role nicely and so I started with two full units in vendettas.

I then fleshed out the "line" of the army with an infantry platoons with 3 squads, autocannons, and grenade launchers. The command squad has a lascannon for dealing with tough armor or MC that might appear. The idea here is that the infantry will try and slow down enemy formations, immobilizing vehicles, and knocking out transports so when the artillery and air cavalry comes in they will have no way to run. I figured autocannons/nade would best get me these results.

Now my troops are fighting chaos, very close to the eye of Terror, there for a commissar is a must. I decided to opt for a Lord Commissar seeing as the possibility of corruption runs high. Taking him would also give me the ability to write some cool fluff for a hardened commissar that has an age old rivalry with chaos. This also serves the purpose of making my block of 35 scoring troops rock hard. It also gives my lowly infantryman the backbone to deal with the horrors of the warp!

So have the troops down I moved onto the HQ. I decided on a line Company command. This would help tactical organization from the ground with the troops as they crawl through cities or engage enemy armor. As well as coordinating with the air cav and artillery. So I added the Master of ordinance to coordinate the artillery strikes as well as the fleet officer for communication with the imperial navy. I was thinking of maybe using a "master vox" from 4th ed to "Count as" a fleet officer. Seeing as they probably have bigger issues to deal with than an infantry regiment, but I could be wrong my fluff is kinda hazy here. I ended up taking an astropath too, I didn't want to originally because I have no real reason fluff wise to have one, but then I remember Cadia utilizes a lot of pyskers and so I added him in the end. If anyone can think of better fluff by all means throw it at me! Being a bigger command squad and being in the thick of the fighting a medic as well as carapace armor was standard issue!

So now I have my 2 HQ, Troop choices, and a few fast attack choices I moved onto the armor. I knew I wanted artillery to fill the role of bombarding the enemy once they were locked down. I choice the manticore for this. I love the tank and wanted to fit it into my army. This may change however if I feel I cannot come up with good fluff to fit the backstory of why its there. I mean they are very rare vehicles apparently. For tank choices I took first the typical siege tank. When my guys are going block to block they want the ol demolisher attached to them to be leveling those hab buildings

My final choice was a bit tricky. If my general knew he would be facing Chaos then he would know daemons, monsterous creatures, and power armored foes would be crawling in the ruined Kasrs. There for he would play his "you owe me a favor card" and have an executioner attached to his deployed platoons. With these 3 choices down I had some spare points left and so once again knowing he would be fighting armored foes in ruins, my commander opted for a banewolf. With this back story in mind here is my list. If you can think of fluffier things to take, or can think of a reason to replace things let me hear it! The only thing is that keep in mind I'm trying to make a fluffy yet competitive list with neither side taking precedence.

Veteran squads x 2
-plasma pistol
-2x plasma guns (debating about making them meltas)
-Heavy flamer (BURN THOSE HERETICS!)
-Demolitions
(many people may tell me that putting the heavy flamer in isnt a good thing when they have rapid fire weapons. Yet I feel this makes them flexible, they have melta bombs for tanks, heavy flamer for light infantry, and plasma for heavy infantry. These are the rapid response boys after all. Altho I am thinking of taking melta guns instead of plasma.)

Fast Attack

Valkyrie Vendetta x 2 (separate squadrons)
-3x twin linked lascannons

Banewolf
-Extra Armor
-Smoke launchers

Heavy Support

Manticore
-Camo netting
-Heavy flamer

Executioner
-Hull heavy bolter
-Plasma Sponsons
-Extra armor

Demolisher
-Hull lascannon
-Plasma sponsons
-Extra armor

Alright guys, feed back is most appreciated!

Desaster

09-01-2009, 05:38 PM

It's really nice to read a list from someone who actually thought about the background and not only about effectiveness ;)

IMHO there are several points where you can get more bang for your buck without changing the theme.

First, the CCS. Those guys have the best BS in your army, and I think you should make the best use of it. Due to the fact that you have a MoO, they are predestined for a heavy weapon. Therefore, I would drop the medic and add a HW team (Autocannon, Missile Launcher or LasCan). I can see no use for meltabombs and Plasma pistol in your CCS, because it's clearly supposed to stand & shoot.
But they definitely need a chimera. It will increase their order-range (because you can measure from the hull), and gives them better protection than carapace. Take hBolter/hBolter and lay down a good rain of fire!

I'm not a big fan of the Lord Commissar, but it fits the theme very well. Nonetheless I would choose the cheaper Commissar-option of the CCS.

The infantry platoon is good, but drop the meltabombs in the PCS and add a couple of Grenade Launchers.
The single Voxcaster has no use at all, because none of your officers has one...
Drop all meltabombs in the squads.
Don't combine the squads if they have heavy weapons. I would either recommend to play 3 squads with melta guns or flamers and combine them and play an additional HW-Squad with 3 Autocannons, or keep the squads as they are, but don' t combine them.

For the veterans I would change the plasma guns either to flamers (BURN! BURN! BURN!) or, even better in my book, to melta guns. With 2 melta guns, hflamer and demo charge they can take on every Chaos unit you want. I guess they are riding one of the Vendettas? If not, take a chimera!

I hope the two Vendettas are effectively 2 squadrons of a single Vendetta each - 6 synchr. LasCans firing at the same target are pure overkill. Maybe you switch one of them to a Valkyrie with Multilaser and Missile pods to get a bit more anti-infantry firepower?

The Hellhound (and Devil Dog) are both way better than a Banewolf - For theme, I would go for a Hellhound.

Demo and Executioner are both very good choices, but I don't like the manticore in the list. A Medusa would fit better to the cityfight theme than a indirect fire support, or a Colossus to crack open those Power armors.

All in all it's just a question of taste, I guess. I'm all for "melta is the new plasma" and usually play multiple veteran squads with 3 melta guns, demolitions and some kind of transport together with a solid gunline not very different from your platoon.

Hope you'll find my thoughts helpful ;)

tuffdart

09-01-2009, 06:01 PM

Nice list and good suggestions fest.
I like and use the manticore a lot. Against daemonic hoards, ouch. Not so much on marines (ap 4).
On camo netting, you could skip it and hide behind the wall of 14 armor. 30 points is too much = to 3 melta guns (melta=joy). If they can't see your hull they can't shoot you.

Agreed on the CCS, they are great fire support that can order up some serious shooty. Bury them behind the primary line.

my two cents

Bitey

09-02-2009, 06:55 AM

To start of I echo the plaudits for presenting such a well thought through list from a background rather than WIN! perspective, its heartening to see :)

One possible problem that I can forsee is a lack of mobility/ flexibility- that combined platoon with attached Lord Commissar will be tough but can only shoot at one target per turn and you're giving up a lot of firepower if you do need to move it for objective grabbing. Both your command squads are quite static too as they can't really move around to make best use of their orders without sacrificing their heavy weapons abilities

I'd be tempted to maybe suggest having 2 elements to your infantry- a shooty firebase led by a slimmed down command squad with a heavy weapon to complement the master of ordnance- perhaps dropping some of the kit on the officer and either or both of the astropath/ officer of the fleet- they do add up in cost and I don't think your list is really screaming for them, along with a couple of 10 man infantry squads and heavy weapons squads.
Then a second more mobile element in the form of say a 20 man combined platoon led by the lord commissar, or to save points just a normal one...

With those veteran squads, do you mean each squad has 2 plasma pistols and 2 plasma guns or do you mean 1 of each for each squad? If the former then only the segeant can take a pisotl I'm afraid and if the latter, then you may as well take an additional plasma gun

In any case I feel those veterans, and by extension there vendetta transports are too multi purpose. Vendettas are best at long range AT sniping, taking advantage of their mobility (especially with their scout move) to get into good flanking fire positions whilst those, albeit jack of all trade, vets are reliant on getting in close whether its to flame hordes, rapidfire terminators or meltabomb tanks.

One of the key differences between a valkyrie and a vendetta as far as transporting troops is concerned is that a Valkyrie can zoom in 12" drop off its squad safely and then deal out an impressive amount of supporting anti infantry firepower, a vendetta will only be able to shoot a single lascannon in support.

so theres a few ideas anyhow....

Col_Festus

09-02-2009, 09:54 AM

Thanks for the feed back guys!

@ everyone!

First thank you for checking out my thread! I've been in a competitive environment almost my entire 40k career of 15 years. Its been very stifling and Ive decided to throw caution into the wind and go for a list I enjoy playing.

I agree with your points about the melta bombs, I initially put them in there to represent squads being issued charges to destroy Chaos shrines and Icons they may come across on their home turn! (damn chaos lol). I did rethink this however and took them out and added a few special weapons to my normal command squad.

I noticed the command HQ doesn't have a vox, I forgot to put it down there =p silly me. The Vox in the single infantry squad is to combined the three into a blob of 30 and stick them near the command HQ. This will allow me to basically twin link all the autocannons to take out transports. If there are no MC or transports then Ill use fire on my target to make peeps reroll cover saves (non MEQ obviously). Then stick the lord commissar in the squad and make them stubborn 10 with a reroll to hold objectives. Although I can downgrade this to the normal commissar and see how it works as well.

I also gave my commander a plasma pistol and put a plasma gun in the squad in case terminators deep strike near me, or near my 30 man blob, they will move to engage with plasma fire.

I messed up a bit on those veteran squads. Its actually 2 squads each with 1 plasma pistol and two plasma guns with a heavy flamer. I am very torn between taking melta or plasma.. I feel plasma will waste MEQ better, but melta are more flexible. The squads are each riding in the vendettas too. The vendettas are separate squadrons ;). I took the vendettas because of the lack of anti armor fire power my army has.

I went with the manticore once again for a bit of tank killy firepower. Because its indirect it his vehicles on their side armor if the hole is over the top. And then its 2d6 take the highest + 10 vs on average 12 side armor on most tanks =) with D3 shots mmmm. I going to give it a go for awhile, and if I don't care for it I'll swap it for a colossus.

I felt the banewolf would be better for taking out nests of power armored chaos foes! but once again I went out on a limb here to test this out for fluff reasons.